Lucertini M, Moleti A, Sisto R
Italian Air Force--CSV Aerospace Medicine Department, Pratica di Mare AFB, Pomezia, Roma.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2002 Feb;111(2):972-8. doi: 10.1121/1.1432979.
Theoretical considerations and experimental evidence suggest that otoacoustic emission parameters may be used to reveal early cochlear damage, even before it can be diagnosed by standard audiometric techniques. In this work, the statistical distributions of a set of otoacoustic emission parameters chosen as candidates for the early detection of cochlear damage (global and band reproducibility, response level, signal-to-noise ratio, spectral latency, and long-lasting otoacoustic emission presence) were analyzed in a population of 138 ears. These ears have been divided, according to a standard audiometric test, in three classes: (1) ears of nonexposed bilaterally normal subjects, (2) normal ears of subjects with unilateral noise-induced high-frequency hearing loss, and (3) their hearing impaired ears. For all analyzed parameters, a statistically significant difference was found between classes 1 and 2. This difference largely exceeds the difference observed between classes 2 and 3. This fact suggests that the noise exposure, which was responsible for the unilateral hearing loss, also caused subclinical damage in the contralateral, audiometrically normal, ear. This is a clear indication that otoacoustic emission techniques may be able to early detect subclinical damages.
理论思考和实验证据表明，耳声发射参数可用于揭示早期耳蜗损伤，甚至在通过标准听力测定技术能够诊断之前。在这项工作中，对138只耳朵的群体分析了一组被选为早期检测耳蜗损伤候选参数的耳声发射参数的统计分布（全局和频带再现性、反应水平、信噪比、频谱潜伏期和持续性耳声发射的存在）。根据标准听力测试，这些耳朵被分为三类：（1）双侧未暴露的正常受试者的耳朵，（2）单侧噪声性高频听力损失受试者的正常耳朵，（3）他们的听力受损耳朵。对于所有分析的参数，在第1类和第2类之间发现了统计学上的显著差异。这种差异大大超过了在第2类和第3类之间观察到的差异。这一事实表明，导致单侧听力损失的噪声暴露也在对侧听力测定正常的耳朵中造成了亚临床损伤。这清楚地表明耳声发射技术可能能够早期检测亚临床损伤。
